In Slate, Michael Moran argues that much of America’s economic difficulties has nothing to do with actual economic problems, and everything to do with the paralysis of the American political system. “Only about 30 percent of the trouble facing the U.S. today is economic,” he writes. “The U.S. economy, compared with all the other developed …
Thanks to the Millennium Art Academy High School in the Bronx for inviting me to speak at the Career Day event on Wednesday. My co=presenter Kathleen Cushman spoke about being a writer. Thanks very much to my old friends and new friends of friends who donated magazines to be distributed to the students attending the …
Following Saturday’s “Take a bath and get a job” slam on Occupy Wall Street, Grumpy Old Man Newt Gingrich continued his “Hey You Kids, Get Off My Lawn!” campaign for the presidency yesterday by advocating an end of Child Labor laws. Proving that there is truly nothing sacred in the right’s efforts to roll back …
Today in New Hampshire, presidential candidate, corporate consultant, and Tiffany’s Customer of the Year Newt Gingrich told a group of college students that he would change the social security system to allow them to opt out of the current system, in favor of putting the money into private retirement accounts. Seven years ago, in what …
Last Friday, my college-age daughter was applying for a part time job at a retail outlet. In the meandering path job interviews sometimes take, the manager began talking about Occupy Wall Street. “They should get jobs,” said the manager, who said that he was the child of eastern European immigrants. “The world doesn’t owe them …
This is a picture of Ray Lewis, a retired Philadelphia Police Department captain, being arrested with other Occupy Wall Street protesters in Zuccotti Park last week. Lewis was carrying signs a pair of signs urging New York City cops to join the protests. “NYPD Don’t Be Wall Street Mercenaries,” one read. Lewis was highly critical …
Three cheers for David Brooks, who earlier this week used his column in The New York Times to speak up against the torrents of sanctimoniousness and self-righteousness that followed the revelations about child abuse at Penn State. “First came the atrocity, then came the vanity,” wrote Brooks. “The atrocity is what Jerry Sandusky has been …
Among the few embarrassing experiences left to a person in his fifties is to be exposed as a naif. Over the years I’ve grown quite complacent, in my aging bourgeois post-9/11 whiteness, to snuggle myself under the warm comforter of a visible police presence. It’s been dismaying and alarming and frightening to see what I …
Last year, Mike Bloomberg was my hero. The way he stood up to the opponents of the lower Manhattan Islamic cultural center was eloquent, and courageous, and in the greatest traditions of New York and America. But this year, Bloomie is blowing it. His annoyed, prickly, dismissive, contentious treatment of the Occupy Wall Street protesters …